


second try where no one dies

by sa00harine



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:02:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28741437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sa00harine/pseuds/sa00harine
Summary: A sequence of events, certainly. After Beverly Katz's death, Brian Zeller figures it out- that Hannibal Lecter hasn't ever been who he said he was. He acts quickly and along the way, a few more surprising events occur.
Relationships: Jimmy Price/Brian Zeller
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	second try where no one dies

**Author's Note:**

> yeah I decided on the plot with no outline and went by chance, but here we are!! a somewhat disjointed sort of a fix it I'll admit, I hope somebody out there enjoys it !!

Brian knew. He knew what Beverly had known. It had all become painfully blatant with every new development. And he knew it so loudly he had to make a shitty excuse- go to get the team coffee, if only to not be in the same room with Hannibal Lecter. Sure, half-way out of the labs, he’s skidded to a stop, heart pounding in his chest at the inkling of leaving Jimmy alone in there. Jimmy didn’t know, he’d be fine. Nobody fucking knew. Just him. 

Just him and Will. 

Shit. 

In his car, he calls Jack. 

“There’s actually some traffic on the way. I went to get it at that pricy place. Bev liked the food.” He doesn’t say Beverly. It’s a full name for a woman who never got to live her full life. His hands tighten on the wheel. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Brian says as he turns on the way to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He only needed a little bit of time. 

He won’t admit that he drives faster than he should. It feels foolish, to drive or to run or think of escaping. He was embedded in a fate he couldn’t cut himself out of. The big picture was growing less and less full- losing people to one caricature. Factually, it made perfect sense. To eliminate yourself as a suspect, you put yourself on the side and put on an inconspicuous, helpful suit. You remain as composed as you can and then when you know for sure you have ‘em wrapped around your finger you-

You keep it that way. You kill who you need to because it was all a game and they were the pieces on the board. Beverly had only been an inconvenience. An act of impulse. A warning Brian Zeller didn’t care enough to be wise and ignore. He was already in it for better or for worse anyways, so why not?

Will must have felt this way in Bloomington. Brian curses the fact Will hadn’t taken the shot sooner and starts to feel a sort of companionship form. He’d never liked Will. First of all, he’d traipsed into the labs and between staring blankly and shivering, made jumps nobody could explain but Jack bought regardless. Next, he took irritatingly long to reenact the crimes, or as he preferred to call it, playing house with corpses. Call him a downer, but Brian preferred to take what was there of the evidence and go from that with making assumptions. Not to mention the one time Will had lost control and butchered what was left of Beth Labeau. And then Abigail Hobbs' ear. And the Brian waking up in a cold sweat at the thought of his sister in her place. And then Beverly there instead. 

A psychiatrist, a surgeon, and a cannibalistic-murderer. Some of which Brian would have liked to know before trusting Hannibal, he thinks, sarcastic and bitter as he pulls up in the parking lot. 

Chilton’s on him the second he walks through the door. 

“Brian Zeller, are you here on behalf of the FBI?” He asks, falling into his same pace and failing to make it look natural. 

He looks stoically ahead as an employee clears him with Chilton’s permission. “I need to speak to Will Graham.” 

Chilton presses his cane to the ground so the loud thump disrupts Brian’s uncharacteristically scattered stream of consciousness. Brian stops walking. He turns around. 

Chilton raises a single eyebrow. 

“I wasn’t here,” Zeller says. “If anybody asks, I wasn’t here.”

“What is the appeal for me in agreeing to that?” 

It proves difficult for Brian to not roll his eyes. Now of all times, he has the strange urge to cry. To break. The past night after going home, not carpooling with Beverly any longer because her house was only a block away from his apartment complex, he’d tried. He’d looked at the picture in his kitchen of him, Jimmy, Beverly, and Jack and let his eyes burn. Nothing had come. An unsettling numbness that burned at the edges had filled the space Beverly used to fill. And when he woke up this morning, it had become fear. 

At the moment, it was closer to anger. Desperate anger he was trying in vain not to broadcast to every passerby but as it was, he wasn’t doing the cleanest job. Chilton takes his silence and schools his face into sympathy. It isn’t genuine and that irks Brian further. He doesn’t want any sympathy, and he definitely doesn’t want it if it’s faked to gain something from him. 

“What do you want?” 

“I want in on the Chesapeake Ripper case,” Chilton states with the cadence of a man who had practiced the request to his own mirror. “That’s what I want.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Brian says, voice flat. “Will?” 

Chilton stretches his cane with a flourish and gives a nod of his head. Brian doesn’t miss the slight smile on his face. “If you’ll follow me.” 

Will sat, hunched on the bed with his face in one hand. He looked about the way Brian felt. Chilton had left Brian at the gate and Will had either noticed and not cared that he wasn’t alone or he was lost in his head. 

Brian, not willing to entertain either with thought and lose time, clears his throat. 

“Zeller,” Will says and then looks up, eyeing him. 

He wants to ask how much Will knows, but he remembered Jack had taken Will- bound and masked- at the scene. He can’t ask the other questions- how had Will figured it out? Was he as hopelessly terrified as Brian was? Was he able to look at an empty space and see it for what it was instead of what used to be there? He stares for a long time. 

“I believe you.” 

Will’s jaw drops for a brief second and he stands up. “What changed?” He asks. Brian doesn’t blame his skepticism. 

“The night before she asked me if Hannibal Lecter was at the hospital with Jack and his wife.” 

For about the tenth time, Brian berates himself for not knowing. He could have asked her and maybe she wouldn’t have gone. They could have driven home and shared a drink, for fuck’s sake. Of course when Beverly had her mind set on something, she would still have found a way. If only it hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could have gone with her. He hates that he wouldn’t have, not then, but  _ now  _ he would. That meant nothing. It could fix nothing. 

“She was making sure,” says Will. He sets his jaw. Brian pretends not to see the tension there just as he had with Jimmy. And Jimmy had done with Jack. The tightening of the throat and blurring of the eyes. But no tears. They didn’t come. He dreaded the moment they did. Brian didn’t believe he could so easily stop once he’d begun. “I told her to  _ stay away _ ,” Will adds, pained. 

“She did it for you.”

“Why are you here?” Will asks suddenly.

Brian straightens. “Because I’m going to do what she wanted to. I want to see him in here for what he did. You do too.”

Will looks uncertain. Brian hoped that it was due to his abrupt kindness and not that he wasn’t sure if he wanted Hannibal in his place. Maybe he knew. Maybe he didn’t want to come to terms with knowing. Being smart was often an advantage, but with it came the dread of knowing what you rather wouldn’t. 

“Stay away from him,” Will warns. “ _ Listen  _ to me this time.” 

What he hadn’t been prepared for was the pleading in Will’s voice. Beverly had thought of Will as a friend, and Will had cared for her too. Brain doesn’t see himself as Will’s friend, or not the same way Beverly had, but if they’re stuck- flies on the web Hannibal had strung, he could stand to repair what had been damaged upon Will getting framed. 

He nods. “I owe you an apology,” Brian tells him. 

“You don’t owe me anything.” 

Brian surprises himself with the objection he feels to that. “I thought you were a killer.” 

“The evidence was hard to deny. There was a lot of it,” Will reasons. “Compelling.” 

Brian almost says more- how Beverly’s faith and reluctance to confide in anybody else had resulted so tragically. Will can see it. They meet eyes and of all the missing pieces, one falls into place. 

Will looks away first. “Thank you,” he says. For coming. For telling me. For believing in me, he doesn’t say. 

-

Leftovers from the coffee shop sit in a bag as Brian returns to the labs. The coffees are cold. Evidently, he’d been too long, but Chilton’s word and the notion that he’d needed some time away kept his field trip under wraps for now. 

Jimmy recognizes the logo. “You got us coffee and smuggled yourself a treat,” he observes later on while they’re walking out. 

“Remembered your order too. These are for us, you’re welcome.” Brian opens the bag and Jimmy peeks at the bagels and pastries inside. 

“Why so many? I know we won’t finish those. Your eyes are always bigger than your stomach and-” Jimmy pulls back the bag again. “-I can’t have that much sugar.” 

Brian bats his hand away. They share a sad look. Jimmy had also known the answer to that. Before his brain could catch up, Brian’s mouth had reprised the familiar orders he’d get them- them being Brian, Jimmy, and Beverly.

They each go their own ways home after bidding Jack goodbye, and unusually silent on their walk out, Jimmy and Brian walk straight into Hannibal. 

Brian makes an effort to appear neutral and Jimmy effortlessly seems unphased. Jimmy was good at that, keeping his emotions off his face. Brian wondered if he’d missed out on the class where you learned to pretend it was all alright. 

“I wanted to thank you for the coffee,” Hannibal says. “As well as ask what took you so long to acquire it. We had begun to worry for you.” 

His blood runs cold. Think. Think. “You don’t need to worry about me,” Brian states casually. Jimmy looks over at him. “Traffic caught me up and the fresh air was healthy. You’re a psychiatrist, you’d recommend it to a patient coping with the death of a loved one, wouldn’t you?” 

Sensing Jimmy being taken aback, Brian pointedly doesn’t look at him, keeping his eyes on Hannibal as he tried to peel back the mask he knew now was hiding the monster from all of them. 

Hannibal doesn’t allow any indication out of the ordinary to cross his face. It’s a maddening relief. “Time spent away from the burdens of work to grieve are a valuable component in one’s recovery,” he agrees. There it is. His tone had breached its typical calm and towards the end slid towards what Brian could only assume was interest born out of self-preservation. He knew, and Brian was determined to make sure nobody died this time. He was already sorry he hadn’t been able to the first time around.

“That,” Brian acknowledges. 

Jimmy jumps in soon after that, sparing a moment to give Brian a not-so-slick glare. Brian returns a look that says all it needs to- he would explain later. 

“Psychiatrist,” Jimmy starts. “Have you been making time between your patients and the consultations here?” 

Hannibal pauses to think. “I haven’t needed to given that I’ve lost a patient.” The slight smile he offers makes Brian dig his toes into his shoe if he can’t clench his fists. He’d given his patient away as a scapegoat. Will was waiting. Beverly was not. “The rest of them I balance between my time here and elsewhere. I find a strong balance is of paramount importance to a busy schedule.” 

So Hannibal was not so different from every other asshole who gave out advice nobody asked for. “Routine,” Brian says. “Good to stick to. Mine has me leaving here about-” He pretends to check his watch as if he doesn’t already know the time. “-right now. Tomorrow?” He asks, knowing full well that if all went according to plan tomorrow would find Hannibal far from the labs and further yet from himself and Jimmy. 

“Yes.” 

A decent distance from Hannibal and well into the parking lot, Brian stops walking. Jimmy, before he could consciously think about why, stops with him. “What?” 

“We’re taking one car,” Brian says. 

Jimmy levels on him a flat look. “Since when…?” 

“Since now,” Brian answers. “And we’re going to yours.” 

With a blink, Jimmy leads them to his car. “You’d better be planning an explanation that makes this make sense. I’m thinking maybe I know what’s up with you but I don’t want to believe it,” he says. “So you’re going to tell me that you do not think Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper like Will does.” 

Brian freezes as he does his seatbelt. He should have known Jimmy would have seen straight through him. “No can do.” 

Jimmy doesn’t look at him as he starts the car. He doesn’t even reply until they’ve been on the road ten minutes. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, just silence. Neither has anything to say, or rather, what they have to say isn’t anything the other is ready to hear. Buildings and trees go by. Brian bounces his leg as he formulates a plan. Jimmy flips off the radio twice, first a Taylor Swift song and then one of his Swedish death metal bands that Brian and Beverly had exchanged baffled glances over. No one to do that with now. 

“You spoke to Will Graham,” Jimmy states after a while. “But that’s not what changed your mind.” 

“Beverly did.” 

Jimmy looks at him then- and the expression on his face is so vulnerable it’s terrible. 

Brian sighs. “The last night I saw her she asked if Hannibal was with Jack.” 

“So you think she tried to investigate.” 

“I know she did. Will knows she did.” 

Jimmy parks when they’re at his place and grips the steering wheel before turning his head. He isn’t as easy to read as he was when Brian said her name. “I don’t think you’re wrong,” he says after staring out the window. “But I don’t want you to be right. Stop bouncing your leg, you’re shaking the car.” 

Brian stops. “I have a pl-” 

“We’re eating first and I’m making tea. Turn something on for background noise.” 

Jimmy tended to be bossy at times, mainly fussy about exacts when it came to coming to conclusions, but Brian could see the tendency to grasp for control here too. He understood the need so he followed Jimmy into the house and did what he was asked. 

Nothing good was on. He turns on a Friends rerun and thinks about how the laughter on the laugh tracks was the laughter of people who were dead. 

They have their tea and they don’t laugh. Strange, considering it had begun to feel as if they were dead or as if they soon might be. Jimmy knew Brian had come to his out of fear- fear that as he was impolite Hannibal would be waiting behind his door with another tableau in mind. Of course, with Jimmy as a witness Lecter wouldn’t take the risk. Even as well-versed in scientific fact and belief as he was, Brian's fear was less rational. 

Once the tea is lukewarm Jimmy gives a nod. 

“Let it reach ten- he’ll be at home since his appointments end before then, and we’re going to call Jack.” 

“He didn’t listen to Will.” 

“Will was unstable.” 

Jimmy takes a judgemental sip. “You think he’s stable now?” 

“I don’t think he’s delusional and I don’t think he’s killed anybody,” Brian says. 

“Besides Garret Jacob Hobbs.” 

“Besides Garret Jacob Hobbs,” he allows. “And I don’t think Abigail’s dead.” 

That surprises Jimmy. He puts his cup down and Brian catches a nervous fidget, tracing the rim of his cup with a finger before he looks up and meets Brian’s eyes again. “The arterial spray in the kitchen,” is all he says. 

Brian shrugs with one shoulder. “Lecter’s a doctor. You could always draw blood and fake it.” 

“Why?” 

“Whatever game he’s playing, he’s not done.” 

Jimmy takes another sip. “I wish this wasn’t tea. I could use a drink,” he confides with a humorless laugh. 

“You’re trying to stay sober,” Brian points out. 

“What we do makes that hard, doesn’t it?” Jimmy asks. “I won’t. I’m five months in.” 

Zeller’s shoulders fall. The tense air drops for a moment and he softens altogether. “That’s-that’s good. Progress, I mean. I’m proud of you.” 

It isn’t a smile that he gets in return but it’s enough. “Thank you.” 

Once they finish and the next episode starts up, Jimmy announces that it’s 9:45. Brian starts. “Not it.” 

“It’s  _ your  _ plan.” 

“Exactly. I came up with it, that’s half the work.” 

“You know it isn’t.” 

Brian stands from the couch. The show was shit, anyways. He holds his hand out for the phone and Price drops it in his hand. 

“Zeller. Are you okay?” Jack asks immediately. 

Brian doesn’t answer for a second, before he remembers Miriam Lass' calls that had been waking Jack in the night. "Fine, Jack.” As okay as one could be. Lost a best friend but the world hasn’t changed or stopped for a second since. People keep dying, the crazies get crazier, there is no ending as far out as he sees. Not a happy one. But he was fine. He didn’t know what other option there was. “Will was right.” 

“Is Price with you?” 

“Price is with me,” Zeller confirms. “Will was right,” he says again. 

Jack sighs from the other end. “What are you thinking?” 

Brian casts a worried glance to Jimmy. Jack didn’t usually give in so easily. His concern crossed that of a co-worker and into that of Jack’s friend. There hadn’t been much time for lightheartedness since the Shrike case- since  _ Will,  _ his mind begged to clarify. He realizes now how much he misses it. They've all eroded since those times, hadn’t they?

“While you were at the hospital with Bella, Beverly came in and asked where you were. I told her. She asked if Lecter was with you.” 

The voice that answers him is thin. Ice melting, vases shattering. Zeller is reminded of things breaking. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“She was with Hannibal, Jack,” Brian insists. 

“There’s no evidence.” 

Jimmy takes the phone. He had been standing close enough to pick up fragments. “That’s not going to stop you,” he argues. “You believe it. You always have, on some level. You didn’t think Will was guilty, and you aren’t sure Hannibal is innocent.”

Brian can’t pick up Jack’s response. He doesn’t have freakishly keen hearing. 

“Of course I could tell, I’ve known you for over a decade. We can meet you at-” 

Jimmy had been interrupted. He doesn’t say goodbye when he hangs up. 

Brian crosses his arms. “What?” 

Jimmy shakes his head. “He doesn’t want us there.” 

“What?” He asks again. “What does he mean he doesn’t-” 

“Can you blame him?” Jimmy hands back Brian’s phone and goes to grab the keys. 

Motionless, Brian stares. “Then what are you doing?” 

“He wants to protect us. The best thing I can think of to feel safe is watching them take him into custody, so we’re going.” He hands Brian his jacket, who shrugs it on. “He’s bringing reinforcements. We’ll park a few houses away.” 

This car ride was tense but their silence was in total agreement. In that moment two sitting in a car had become a singular mind with the same needs- to witness what has to happen and go to sleep the next night with more than a semblance of safety. 

The entirety of the hour drive- Jimmy wasn’t above driving fast when the roads weren’t busy and the cause was urgent, and Brian didn’t make a comment. He didn’t think he could stand it slow. 

“Punch buggy,” Brian blurts out when they’re just five minutes away, before darting his fist over to land on Jimmy’s shoulder. 

Price glares over, disgruntled and likely shaken out of a thought process. There was no car to invite the punch, only the urge to snap Jimmy out of whatever stage of contemplation he’d reached for his eyebrows to slant and worry lines to form deep on his forehead. 

“Lousy punch,” comes the eventual clipped reply. 

“Might come as a surprise that I didn’t want it to hurt you,” Brian answers. 

Jimmy gives a sardonic exhale, turning onto the street. Hannibal’s house and an array of cars surrounding the premises come into view. “You might be one of the few I can trust when you say that.” 

Jimmy’s remark is lost to commotion as they parallel behind another car and look at the scene unfolding past the windshield. 

A door ajar- an obvious attempt to break it down had taken place to no avail, agents scattered about the yard and around the perimeter of the house as far as they can see. Jack stands in the doorway, gun in hand. 

His words aren’t clear and neither can pick up what he’s saying but they do know it’s loud. The neighbors’ lights start to flicker on if they haven’t already. Lecter had always liked the attention and the spotlight. Brian wondered if that would change, whether Lecter would spin it his own way and find the advantage like he seemed to do. He hoped there wasn’t an advantage. 

Movement from inside the house. Everyone tenses. Jack nearly drops his gun. 

Zeller and Price’s eyes flicker to each other. In all their years, they’ve never seen him that pale. They’ve never seen Jack scared, per se. But what else would he be, after every decision he’d made was on a basis whose foundations were crumbling? 

A long moment follows that does not answer any of their unspoken questions. Jack lowers the weapon and raises a hand. Everyone else does too. By now, Zeller is aware of the eyes of the neighbors on the scene, on the back of his neck. Of his leg bouncing again and Jimmy not mentioning it. He- both of them, are busy combatting the sickly feeling rising in their chests. 

They know exactly whose presence had stirred up Jack that thoroughly, discussed it earlier, in fact. 

Abigail Hobbs steps through the door after Jack backs up a sufficient amount. Her eyes want to take in it all, but they stay firm on Jack the way a hunter’s stay firm on deer. Her lower lip wobbles. 

Jimmy opens his door. Brian does too. 

“Where is he?” Jack’s voice is level, just barely. 

Abigail wipes at her face, flinching when one of the men raises a gun. Jack sends a powerful glare and an order to stand and watch for Lecter and Lecter only. “He sent me out here,” she answers. “To distract you.” 

“I can’t let that happen, Abigail. You know what he is.” 

She sniffs. A trail of tears has begun to fall down her cheeks. She looks unbearably older and all too young. She’s had to evolve too many times. “He wants to be my father,” she insists.

Jack holds her stare. “Your first father tried to kill you. Your second is believed to have killed you. And Hannibal is abandoning you because he can’t use you anymore. That isn’t what a father is.”

“They love me,” she says, still. “Just not in ways I could survive.” 

But she’s not stepped down. Abigail purposefully blocks the door. Jack raises his gun. 

“Listen to me,” he tells her. Jimmy and Brian know that tone. They know it’s a warning and they know there’s only one of two ways it can end. With blood, or with cuffs. “I want you to survive, Abigail. For that to happen, I need to get to him. He will kill you, and he’ll kill me. Step away from the door.” 

Abigail shakes her head.

In a second, Abigail had removed a gun from her back pocket, lifted it, and shot Jack exactly in his right shoulder. A few bullets from the team go flying, but she’d already sought cover, ducking behind the door. 

Before they know it, Zeller and Price are running. 

Jack hasn’t faltered. He’d stumbled a little, but he was applying pressure to his shoulder with his hand. His gun lay at his feet. He slowly lowers himself down. He hasn’t taken a moment to see the two men who had stopped on the concrete behind him, but they know he knows they’re there. 

“Abigail,” Jack says. “You-" He stops to breathe, pain in his shoulder having occupied him for a moment. Blood stains his coat. “-You don’t have to do this for him. What’s he doing inside?”

Lecter hadn’t left. The unmistakable sound of footsteps passed by every few moments.

She doesn’t come out but they hear her enough. “Passports,” she replies, muffled. “He has fake ones we were going to use. He had to get them so we-” A pause. “So he could leave.” 

Price starts to walk up, putting a hand on Jack’s good shoulder. Jack doesn’t slump but he leans into it. Price nods to Zeller and hands him Jack’s gun. 

Catching the memo, Brian takes it and approaches the door. The agents have gone to the back, prepared lest Hannibal make a hasty exit that way. 

Brian grew up with sisters. Two. One older, one younger. Still, that didn’t prepare him to calm an armed girl who’d just shot Jack Crawford. He reminds himself she’s scared and adds a short clap on the back for being as correct as he was about her being alive. 

He lays a hand flat on the wood. The door creaks loudly. It was barely clinging on. Right. He both feels the displacement of air and hears Abigail jump and suck in a breath. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Zeller says evenly. “Nobody is.” He steps aside and she moves back, further along the adjoining walls, as a few men enter the house. Within an instant, they’re walking through the halls. Sometimes scenes are loud- there’s shouting of orders, shouting in pain from victims who’ve managed to live, gunshots. He’s seen a world of pain. Most of the time, they’re quiet. The screams of the dead smeared in the air, still drying blood, and a stage barren where he’d sit and extract possibilities the same way actors would share their final vigil before their closing night. 

Abigail clutches the gun with trembling hands. “I shot Jack Crawford,” she says. It’s a reminder, to herself. She’s in shock. 

“And he’ll be fine,” Brain tells her, consciously making his voice softer. “It was his shoulder, you didn’t hit anything vital.” 

She looks straight at him for the first time. “What’s going to happen to Hannibal?” 

Brian takes a breath. “They’re going to find him and take him into custody,” he answers. He squints at the microexpressions Abigail isn’t aware she let show on her face- lower lip dropping, eyes widening, and then lips pursing again. “Abigail.” 

Her eyes return to him from the gun. She’d put it down on the floor. 

“Will you come outside?” 

“I don’t know why I’m scared,” she says as she takes a reluctant few steps. “I’ve survived worse than this.” 

Brian nods. “Yeah, I know the feeling,” he finds himself telling her. “You learn to live with it.” She follows him as they step through the doorway. “You have a whole life ahead of you.” 

“That’s what he told me.” 

“You thought he was going to be a part of it,” Zeller infers. 

Abigail shrugs, tinkering with the scarf around her neck. She wasn’t crying but her voice was raw as if there was a persistent lump in her throat. “I can’t tell if I’m angry at him or angry at everybody who came here tonight.” 

The lawn is empty. Jack’s nowhere to be seen nor is Jimmy.

That is, until they walk up to the street. 

There’s an ambulance that Brian assumes Jack was inside of, and a circle of agents with their guns drawn. Jimmy waits at the outskirts, unarmed. He’s watching with attentive eyes as Hannibal stands in the middle, unnervingly still. 

Brian has the weird urge to cover Abigail’s eyes. 

“The neighbors are getting a show,” he comments. She doesn’t laugh and he doesn’t expect her to, but the slight exhale satisfies him. 

Brian hands her the gun. He doesn’t think she’ll need it, and if he’s honest after what she’s just done it wasn’t his smartest impulse, but he wanted her to feel safe the way he did with it within reach. “I’m going to see what’s going on. Keep that but just don’t… shoot one of us again, please.”

Abigail nods a few times, knuckles white. It wasn’t a gun but an anchor. 

Jimmy meets Brian a few feet away from what’s happening. “Lecter’s trying to make a deal. He wants to say goodbye to Abigail before they take him in. Personally, I think somebody should give him the treatment that Abigail gave Jack. I even volunteer,” he says. 

“How’s Jack?” 

“He’s seen better days, and worse. They’ve stopped the blood but the bullet’s still in there. He wants to stay until they’re sure we have him.” 

Glancing back to Abigail, Brian momentarily panics when he can’t find her. She’s just moved to sitting over standing. Shaking like a leaf. She watches, eyes glued on Hannibal. 

“Let her say goodbye.” 

Jimmy pokes him. “Have you caught the crazy? He’ll kill her.” 

“Make sure he’s cuffed first, genius,” Brian bickers. “Think of it as family therapy. Enormously fucked up family therapy.”

“Between a surrogate-father who happens to take a liking to recreational murder and cannibalism and his daughter who he helped orphan?” 

Brian puts his face in his hand. He’s tired. Really tired. Of all things, he didn’t think the events would play out this way. He looked up again and it wasn’t long enough. “The American Dream,” he jokes hollowly, waving and then beckoning Abigail. 

Jimmy parts through the guns and stands in front of Hannibal. Lecter looks up. He was still dressed in a suit, and the tie didn’t match in the slightest. Obviously, he was trying too hard. Jimmy eyes it with noticeable disdain on purpose before he speaks. 

“Let them cuff you.” 

Hannibal tilts his head to the side. “You’ve heard my request twice now, Agent Price. There were conditions.” 

“I’m aware,” Jimmy snaps. “I have conditions, too. You’re lucky they don’t involve us shooting you.” 

“That’s rude,” Hannibal says, amused. He knew as long as anyone around him expressed anything short of a composed front, he’d be able to take advantage. Jimmy hated it. 

Jimmy nods and guns are lowered. “No, it isn’t. It’s just, but I’ll still be happy to see you in an oversized prison jumpsuit,” he says as Hannibal slowly raises his arms and drops to a knee. 

Abigail hands Zeller back his gun. “He wants to see me,” she says. 

“Yes, actually. You expected that?” 

She looks at the ground. “Whenever I stayed at- at the house he left me at, he’d hug me goodbye.” 

Oh. 

Brian internally cringes when he lays a hand on her shoulder and she stops. He pats it and takes his hand away. “He won’t be able to hug back,” he tells her. “Go for it.” 

Abigail doesn’t move. “You’re- it isn’t-” She pauses. “I can?” 

“Do you want to?” 

She considers it. Abigail looks over at Hannibal. Cuffed and patient on the ground, he had already been looking back. 

“Yes.” 

Brian steps back up to Jimmy as, in the light of car headlights and the night sky, Abigail walks up to Hannibal. She kneels so they’re on the same level and then, without wrapping her arms around him, lays her forehead on his shoulder. He wants to look away when Hannibal leans his head in her direction and his mouth moves. She tenses at whatever he says. The not-really-hug that had been almost sweet for a single moment ends abruptly as she steps back onto her feet, looking down at him. 

“I don’t want you to be proud of me,” Abigail decides. “You aren’t my father.” 

“Abigail,” Hannibal says. 

She steps back, bumping into one of the officers. Her gaze locks on Hannibal. “You killed me,” she accuses. “And if I’d have stayed in there any longer, you would have done it for real- just like my dad did.” 

“I gave you an opportunity to live again without scrutiny.” 

“Without anything that wasn’t you,” she corrects. 

“Yes,” Hannibal admits, honest and unashamed. 

She pulls her jacket tighter around herself. For a girl whose world was falling around her again, out of too many times worth counting, Abigail’s face could only be described as stoic. “He has Miriam Lass at the house he kept me in,” she tells them. 

Zeller and Price go pale. 

“She’s alive.” 

They take Hannibal away, and one by one go the cars and the one ambulance. 

“We have to take you too. They’ll have questions,” Brian tells Abigail apologetically after the scene had come to a close, props taken down and actors taken their bows. In the grand play of things, he wished he could discern why he felt like both the audience member and the character said audience member would soon forget. 

“I know.” 

Once they pile into the car and Jimmy starts to drive, Brian turns to Abigail. She’s leaning on the window and staring at nothing. 

“When’s the last time you ate?” Jimmy asks before Brian can say anything. 

Abigail comes back to herself. “We didn’t finish dinner.” 

“We can stop for something,” Brian suggests. “We only have time for fast food, but that’s better than eating-” 

“That’s fine, thank you,” Abigail says quickly. 

Jimmy pulls over by a McDonalds. “You meant what you said about Miriam.” 

Abigail hesitates. “I can give you the address.” 

“Why did he keep her alive?” 

“Hannibal wanted Jack to know,” she replies. “And then he wanted to save her for last.” 

“He told you this?” Brian asks. 

She nods. “He answered all my questions.” They hear what she means,  _ I'll answer all your questions.  _ "Least I could do after I-" Her voice fails her. 

"I helped Jack to the ambulance. He was giving me instructions the whole time. He'll be okay," Jimmy says. 

Abigail calms. "They're going to ask me why I did it, aren't they?" 

Us. Them. All the world who didn't witness the worst it had to show and still judged those spit out time and time again for being the way they were. "Yes. They'll want to know why you did, and then realize you beat a jail's worth of dangerous men to shooting one of the heads of the FBI." Bad joke. Bad time. It's what he did. 

"I didn't want to hurt him." Abigail collects herself and stares at Zeller. "I didn’t know what to do, so I did what Hannibal told me. He gave me a gun and said that we were going hunting." 

"Should have stuck to deer," says Jimmy. 

But he turns around and looks at her. "Don't blame yourself. We saw what time with Lecter in his head did to Will-"

"Can I see him? He's… better, isn't he?" 

"He'll be released tomorrow. I don’t see why not." Brian doesn't regret saying it when a glimmer of hope passes over her. Will would understand. Zeller and Price were forever on the cusp of understanding- playing with fire but not getting burns as bad as everyone else. It all stung enough to laugh, and so that’s what they did. Better than going up in flames. Better than growing cold. 

Brian and Jimmy both agree to rest and let her rest too. “‘Nuff interrogation,” Brian says. Abigail visibly slumps in her seat. “We’re going to eat and then we’ll go from there.” 

“I’m sorry,” Abigail says after they’d pulled into the drive-through. 

They meet her eyes in the rearview mirror, both starting to say there was no apology necessary. 

“About Beverly Katz. I heard about her.” 

In the same way buildings and everyday life stilled in a snowglobe as snow moved around heedlessly, the car and the agents stiffen. 

“It wasn’t your fault.” Brian assures her, because he couldn't lie and tell her it was okay. It wasn't okay, and because of Hannibal a lot of things might never be. 

Jimmy orders her a milkshake. He'd picked up staying quiet as a habit.

  
  


-

After standard questioning, they drove to the hospital. Jimmy and Brian let the radio play and didn’t miss Abigail unknowingly mouthing some of the words.

Jack’s cleared for visitors and they all pile in. He, evidently, hadn’t rested and sat up as much as he could at their arrival. His face looked stern until Abigail entered behind them. 

“Abigail,” Jack says. 

She drops down into the chair by his bed and doesn’t say anything. 

“I’m not angry,” he tells her. “Never was. I expected worse if that was him who told you to do that.” Jack shifts so he can see her from more than his peripheral. “I’m glad you’re alive.” 

“I shot you,” she says like the words forced their way from her. 

Jack smiles. “I know, I felt the bullet,” he comments. She looks up in confusion and when she isn’t apprehended she relaxes. “We caught the Chesapeake Ripper, we have people at the address you gave us for Miriam Lass, and tomorrow Will Graham will leave the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. I can deal with a stiff shoulder for a few months.” 

Abigail looks over at Zeller and Price. 

“Not to say ‘I told you so’ but-” Brian starts. Jimmy steps on his foot. He snorts. “Will would never have said it, so you know, one of us had to.” 

“There is such a concept as too soon,” Jimmy says. 

Jack let them go back and forth while he regards Abigail. “Should I ask you how you’re feeling?” 

“Probably not,” Abigail answers, not knowing herself. 

She leaves for the waiting room, and after a short interval, Brian joins her, and then Jimmy. 

She’s there when Will takes his first steps out of his cell. Zeller had driven Jack and her since Jack’s shoulder carried temporary nerve damage that complicated things. 

Abigail watches Will stop walking, look around to make sure the others saw what he did, and then finally accept it. 

“You’re alive,” he says, distinctly shaky. 

“He didn’t kill me,” Abigail tells him, and then sensing he needed it, “you didn’t kill me.” 

Will nods. “Are there more surprises waiting for me this morning?” It isn’t his usual sarcasm, very far from it indeed. Just words to keep him talking so he didn’t- 

Abigail understood and instead of stalling she closes the distance and wraps her arms around him tightly. Will freezes for a moment before reciprocating the embrace, holding her close. “I’m real,” she murmurs and promptly lays her head on his shoulder. He wasn’t as tall as Hannibal but it was comforting. His chin dug into her hair and she couldn’t find it in herself to care. 

“I can’t believe it,” he tells her. “Did you-” 

Abigail only grasps his question when he moves back her hair to reveal the place where one of her ears used to be. 

Will looks pale at the sight and Abigail shakes her head a little so her hair covers it again. 

“It isn’t your fault.” 

He tugs her gently back into his chest and she goes easily, letting him hold her and allowing herself to get to something close to trust again. 

Zeller watches the reunion, stopping himself from believing Beverly would appear somehow too. 

“You think I can get Chilton for a long emotional hug too?” Brian asks to lead away from his train of thought. 

Jack huffs. Will glares over Abigail’s shoulder. 

Unexpectedly, they all laugh. 

Everything’s okay. None of it’s okay. They shouldn’t be laughing but at the same time it’s about time they did. Before he even processes that, Brian’s calling Price. 

Jimmy picks up. “Calling me to gloat about how you got an outing while I’m living it up with the dead body smell?” 

“No,” Brian replies, smiling. “Calling you to tell you we caught the Ripper.” 

“I was there,” Jimmy says. 

Zeller shakes his head. “It’s- I guess you could say the end of whatever era that was.” 

Jimmy stays silent. “Only so long until another era starts.” 

“Come  _ on _ .” Brian snaps a picture of Will and Abigail- now him explaining something about fishing that involved copious hand gestures and her smiling while Jack threw in his own remarks. 

“They look happy,” Jimmy observes after the small  _ read  _ symbol appears over the picture Brian had sent. 

He shrugs. “I think they are. Or will be.” 

“And us?” Jimmy asks. 

Brian Zeller watches Will Graham smile as Jack tells Abigail about his dogs. Brian knows he’ll want to know about the details, but for once, it could wait. There was so little light in the corner of the world they’d hitched themselves in. Dark clouds were frequent and suffocating. He imagines the sun outside is still up and would be for a while yet. 

“We can be too. I’ll drop them off and drive you,” Zeller answers. “Where do you wanna go?” 

Jimmy thinks. “I’ve been considering getting a cat lately.” 

“I’m allergic,” Brian deadpans. 

“You did ask me, in my defense,” says Jimmy. 

Brian gives a fondly exasperated grin and follows behind Will, Abigail, and Jack. He goes to the car, savoring in the content quiet on the other end of the call- he can picture Jimmy pacing about with his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder. “Give me ten and I’ll give you the world.” He can picture himself winking if Jimmy had been there to see. 

Jimmy’s surprise is tangible. He doesn’t refuse. “If we’re going out, you can’t choose fast food. It’ll take a while to eat fries without thinking of staunching Jack’s shoulder to keep the blood inside.” 

Nobody would ever get this like them, would they? 

“Your pick. No cats.” Brian hangs up and drives. Abigail tells a story about a museum she’d been to once. There had been an astronomy room, filled with faux stars and an artificial night sky. Will tells her he’ll buy a telescope. Jack rattles off a list of the things they might be able to spot this time of year. He knew because he and Bella admired the stars often in Italy. Abigail asks to meet Bella. Jack says yes. 

Zeller parks. Will shakes Zeller’s hand, grip steady. Abigail actually hugs him. He awkwardly pats her back and feels a short chuckle against his shoulder. Jack gives him a nod which he returns. 

Jimmy’s waiting by his car. “That wasn’t ten,” he says. “More like fifteen.” 

“The world still on the table?” 

Brian opens his door and sits in the driver’s seat. Jimmy gets in next to him. “Could use seeing more of the world than the dead and gone.” 

“Could start with the sun,” he quips. “And maybe Olive Garden.” 

“That’s the best you could do?” 

“You haven’t said no,” Brian says. 

Jimmy barks out a laugh. “No, I haven’t- punch buggy.” 

A fist collides with Brian’s shoulder. 


End file.
